How to Blur Background in Teams

In today’s remote work environment, maintaining professionalism during virtual meetings is crucial. Microsoft Teams offers a Background Blur option that helps users obscure their surroundings, ensuring the focus remains on them and not on what’s happening behind them. This feature is invaluable for anyone looking to minimize distractions and maintain privacy in video calls, whether for business meetings, virtual classrooms, or casual check-ins. This article will explore how to enable and effectively use the Background Blur feature in Microsoft Teams to enhance your video conferencing experience.

What Is Microsoft Teams and Background Blur Option?

Microsoft Teams is a platform of cloud-based team collaboration software. Teams are only one part of the multiple suites of applications offered by Microsoft 365. The core capabilities in Microsoft Teams include file sharing, calling, business messaging, and virtual meetings. Businesses of all sizes can use Microsoft Teams.

One of the main features inside Teams is Background Blur. According to Microsoft Team creators, the new background blur feature was added and permits users to remove embarrassing distractions and focus only on the individual, not what’s behind them. The feature is currently available to all Microsoft Office 365 commercial customers and clients of Microsoft Teams and has discovered the capability is already available within their video calls.

Two Crucial Technology Details About Background Blur Most Don’t Know

Background Blur was announced back in July 2018. Along with getting the free version of Teams, users can now blur the background of their video calls. That feature is still currently available. However, if you don’t read the fine print, there are issues with performing facial recognition most don’t know. The blur feature is an AI-driven feature, and it will use facial recognition to automatically blur out your background while the individual is in a video Teams meeting.

The technology to perform facial recognition identifies the person and understands where the background to be blurred begins and where the environment not to be blurred ends. The technology only runs on computers recently equipped with Advanced Vector Extension 2 (AVX2) graphics installed. AVX2 is what Microsoft Teams must use to blur the background after it figures out the position of the user.

Advanced Vector Extension graphics get supported when a computer has a post-Haswell chipset. If your current tablet, laptop or desktop background blurring is working, then you have the needed chipset; but if it’s an older device, it may not function. Also, be aware that a computer’s CPU has quite a bit of processing to do to locate a face and then blur the background. If you are running a loaded system, it will impact any other work on your PC that is in progress.

How To Blur Your Background During Your Video Call?

To start blurring your background, during a video call, you have two options you can try. Press the CTRL+Shift+P combination. If things go blurry, during your video call, you know that your PC has this feature.

Step 1: Start or Join a Meeting

• Start a Meeting: Open Microsoft Teams and start a new meeting by selecting the appropriate team and channel, then click on the “Meet now” button.
• Join a Meeting: If you’re joining an existing meeting, click on the meeting link or navigate to the meeting in your Teams calendar and select “Join”.

Step 2: Access Meeting Controls

• Once you’re in the meeting, look for the meeting controls toolbar, usually found at the top or bottom of the screen. This toolbar contains various options like mute, camera, share content, and more.

Step 3: Open Camera Settings

• Click on the “More actions” ellipsis (three dots) in the meeting controls toolbar.
• From the dropdown menu, select “Show background effects”.

Step 4: Select Blur Effect

• A right-side panel will appear with various background options.
• Scroll to find the “Blur” option, which is typically the first choice after the no background option.
• Click on “Blur” to preview how it will look.

Step 5: Apply the Blur Effect

• Once you’ve selected “Blur”, click on “Apply” and “Turn on video” to activate the blurred background.
• Your background will now be blurred, and only your silhouette will be in clear view.

Summary of What We Have Discovered

• Organizations use Microsoft Teams as a communication platform. It allows their employees to work and chat one-on-one. They can join company-wide video conference calls, share documents, and more. At the 2018 Microsoft Ignite developer conference, the company announced it added a few exciting features to the Teams platform, surprisingly the ability to add background blur during a live video call.
• According to the Microsoft Teams creators, the new background blur feature was added to give users the ability to remove distractions behind them and have individuals focus on the person in front of them. The function was rolled out, and customers of Microsoft Teams will find that the capability is already available within their video calls.
• The blur feature is an AI-driven feature, and it will use facial recognition to automatically blur out your background during Teams meetings. The technology only runs on computers recently equipped with Advanced Vector Extension 2 (AVX2) graphics installed.
• Advanced Vector Extension graphics get supported when a computer has a post-Haswell chipset. If your current tablet, laptop or desktop background blurring is working, then you have the needed chipset; but if it’s an older device, it may not function.

Updated – 4/16/2014